The First Months In Charge Of «La Celeste»

OK folks, here’s the first update about my Uruguay career, as promised in the previous post. It was a new and interesting challenge for me, managing a lot of very talented players from a glorious football nation. They won the World Cup twice, but that was a long time ago, in 1930 and 1950. The FA expected me to qualify the team for the next World Cup, it will be held in 2014 in Brazil.

I found an experienced group of players in the squad, most of them playing in Europe for good teams.

I wasn’t allowed to call up any new players for the first game, so I had to rely on the squad that I found. That first game was a friendly one, away in Saudi Arabia. I tried to use the same tactic I’m using with Notts County and it seems it was a mistake, the game could have turned out to be a disaster. We were outplayed throughout the game and I had to thank Cavani for scoring a goal, he did that all by himself.

But the hero of the game was goalkeeper Fernando Muslera, he kept a clean sheet with some spectacular saves. I still can’t believe that we didn’t concede any goals in that game, Saudi Arabia had a lot of great chances to score.

Things had to change, some of the players that were on the pitch in Saudi Arabia don’t deserve that honor. I changed part of the squad for the next game, another friendly one with Trinidad & Tobago. I didn’t change the tactic but it went a lot better, we dominated the game and created an attractive attacking football that must have pleased the fans.

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We had another friendly game to play four days later, away in El Salvador. It was a much better opposition than Trinidad and Tobago but I was pleased with the team’s performance, we controlled the game completely not allowing our opponents to create any chances. It seemed like the team was on a good route.

There are two players that held the headlines after those two games. The first one is a youngster, an 18 year old regen named Hector Santos. I called him up to the national team for the first time in his career. He’s a promising lad and I wanted to give him some confidence and encourage him to work hard and develop into a great player.

Our star player so far is definitely Edinson Cavani, he plays for mighty Barcelona! He’s a very talented striker and considering that he’s only 24 years old I guess he will become a true legend for Uruguay.

The friendly games were over, it was time to face the real challenges, the World Cup qualification games. The first one was the easiest, at home with the weakest team in the group, Venezuela. It was my first game at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, I was quite nervous. The players were quite determined though and by half time we were already pretty happy, we were 4-0 up. We conceded twice somehow in the second half but managed to score another pair, it was a nice home debut.

Diego Forlan was the best player of the game, his experience is a treasure for the team. He always picks out the right passes and his finishing is still world class.

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One month later, in November, we had two other games to play in the World Cup qualification group. The first game was away in Peru, a very tough opponent. Centre back Diego Godin gave us the lead in the first half from a corner kick but unfortunately he got injured a few minutes later. Peru dominated the second half and made things level right after the break. We managed to score again on a counter attack and then defended the lead with great determination. We came out of it with an important victory over a qualification contender but we didn’t play too well…

Diego Godin was the man of the match, he scored with a nice volley from a corner kick cross but then got injured, I don’t have too many alternatives to replace him…

The last game of the year was away in Paraguay, a very difficult challenge. I had quite a few injured players to worry about, goalkeeper Muslera, Godin, plus strikers Forlan and Cavani… We played pretty well though but we failed to make the difference upfront, my strikers missed a few good chances and we lost the game.

Luis Suarez is a big star at his club, Ajax Amsterdam, and he had the chance to prove his skills in the Paraguay game. He was a big disappointment though, I was extremely angry with him at the end of the game. He was complacent and although he created chances thanks to his talent he missed them like an amateur… If he won’t show a better attitude in future games I might consider not calling him up again, I don’t need superstars that can’t score from 10 yards one on one with the keeper!

The good thing is that Brazil are already qualified for the World Cup, they will be the hosts. That make things a bit more simple but we will still have to fight to get one of the first four spots. I think that the first 8 teams will battle for those four places with Argentina and Colombia as strong favorites.

The five games that we will have to play in 2012 will show us if we have the strength to qualify or not. We’ll have the chance to warm up with a friendly game against Kuwait but then we’ll have to fight for the points, there will be some fierce battles to fight!

That’s how it was, I can say that it’s very difficult to manage a national team but it’s a very interesting challenge. I hope that I’ll be able to make better choices when selecting the players, I think I’ll disregard the names and call up the most in form players for each game.

And since it’s the last day of 2009 I wish you all a very happy shiny new year, may all your wishes come true in 2010! There are a bit more than 10 hours until midnight here but I’ll check the blog from time to time to answer your comments ;) Happy New Year my friends!

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